Playing Dice with Morality: Weighted Lotteries and the Number Problem

Abstract

In this article I criticize the non-consequentialist Weighted Lottery (WL) solution to the choice between saving a smaller or a larger group of people. WL aims to avoid what non-consequentialists see as consequentialism's unfair aggregation by giving equal consideration to each individual's claim to be rescued. In so doing, I argue, WL runs into another common objection to consequentialism: it is excessively demanding. WL links the right action with the outcome of a fairly weighted lottery, which means that an agent can only act rightly if s/he has actually run the lottery. In many actual cases, this involves epistemic demands that can be almost impossible to meet. I argue that plausible moral principles cannot make such extreme epistemic demands.

Role of Ethics in Decision Making in Public and Private Organizations

“…In "The Responsible Administrator", he points out that public administrators make decisions every day based on a specific four-level process. These levels are (Alexander, 2005;Alexander, Ferzan, 2009;Brook, 2007;Doucet, 2013;Halstead, 2016):…”